GOV. BYRNE: I thought Obama redeemed himself. He overcame what even I thought was a very weak performance in the first debate — although, by the way, I was surprised he wasn’t hurt more by that. That supports "Farley’s Law," which holds that everyone has made up their mind by Labor Day.

GOV. KEAN: The president keeps reinventing himself. This was not the Obama of the first debate, nor the Obama of "hope and change," who people liked the first time he ran. This was kind of a nasty Obama. I don’t think he made a case for a second term. But a lot of this debate was two guys shouting at each other. Unfortunately, the moderator sided with Obama.

BYRNE: Tom, I admitted that Obama was hurt by the first debate. Why can’t you admit he was helped by the second?

KEAN: He undoubtedly was. But I remember the upbeat Obama of four years ago. This one denigrated his opponent and I don’t think that’s going to excite anybody.

Q: Will the reported drop in the unemployment rate help Obama, or do voters judge more by instinct than statistics in economic matters?

BYRNE: Unemployment is not what’s going to turn this election around, nor is any candidate going to be helped or hurt by the unemployment rate. It’s an economic phenomenon beyond anybody’s control and the public understands that.

KEAN: The unemployment rate would have to move dramatically up or down to help or hurt Obama, and it didn’t.

Q: New Jersey Transit may end free rides for non-union employees. Is that an important statement about cutting back on traditional perks for government workers?

BYRNE: Sometimes, when you can’t give people the salary they’re entitled to, you give them perks, and the railroad pass was a perk. When I worked in the governor’s office for $7,000 a year, I got a railroad pass, too. I don’t begrudge giving somebody that kind of perk.

KEAN: I don’t think ending the practice matters economically, but generally, I’m against free perks. Everybody should be treated the same, whether you work for government or not. We got perks years ago when I was in the Legislature. Hopefully, they don’t still get them.

BYRNE: The bond issue is a good idea, but it should be accompanied by a way of paying off the debt. We’re now issuing bonds without any means of paying them off. None. That disturbs me. I know (Montclair University President) Susan Cole is mad at me, so I have soft-pedaled my criticism because she’s such a great leader. But we just refuse to make paying them off a requirement. In the old days, a bond issue had incorporated into it a way of paying it off. Not anymore.

KEAN: It doesn’t sound like you’re soft-pedaling it now. This is the first time we’ve done anything for higher education since 1988, when I was governor and Reagan was president. Our tuitions have risen to some of the highest in the country, our colleges have borrowed up to their necks and we’ve lost jobs because companies have left the state because they don’t have synergies with higher education. This is something every other state around us has done. We cannot compete and we can’t pull ourselves out of the recession if we can’t do something to help our kids.

BYRNE: Tom, tomorrow you will be lamenting that our bond rating has depreciated and soon will have depreciated beyond even our ability to pay.

KEAN: I couldn’t agree with you more, but much of the problem relates to bonds done without even putting them out for voter approval. The cost of this whole issue is less than the cost of Xanadu.

BYRNE: They’re going to make us a poorer New Jersey.

KEAN: No state can shortchange higher education and hope to grow. This is a small investment and, without it, we’re all going to be poorer. When you construct projects to serve for more than 30 years, you have to fund them with bonds.

BYRNE: We’re never going to pay it off, Tom. Never.

KEAN: We’ll pay it off over a number of years. I don’t have any concern about that.